


with you i'll stay until the morning light

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Mack has been up all night, and Elena just wants him to come to bed.





	with you i'll stay until the morning light

It’s so late that night has faded into morning, the pink light of dawn slanting through the windows of the small apartment that Elena and Mack have been calling home since the showdown in Chicago. Mack never came to bed, which isn’t atypical anymore. Elena knows better than to speak ill of the dead, but she can’t help but resent Coulson a little for resting the weight of being director squarely on Mack’s shoulders. He takes the responsibility seriously - of course he does, he’s  _ Mack _ \- but Elena can’t help but worry that he’s going to burn out if he doesn’t take a break, and soon.

She knocks on the door of his makeshift office softly. “Mack? Es de mañana, Turtle Man.” After waiting for a response and receiving none, Elena pushes the door open, half-expecting to see Mack asleep at his desk.

Much to her chagrin, he’s still awake, staring at the laptop screen in front of him with his fingers pressed against his temples. He squints harder at the screen, not even registering her presence, and Elena frowns. She pads across the space, the coolness of the hardwood underneath her bare feet causing her to shiver.

“Mack,” she repeats, louder. “You’ve been up all night, mi amor.”

Mack stretches, then rubs his eyes with his fists. He glances out the small office window to see the sun peaking over the horizon. “Huh. Guess I have been.”

“You need your sleep,” Elena admonishes softly. 

Mack shakes his head, pushing his chair back from the desk and offering his lap to her. Elena sits with a sigh, kissing the corner of his mouth softly as he winds his arms around her.

“I’m beginning to think it’s a good thing Coulson had the whole alien blood thing,” Mack tells Elena as she snuggles closer to him. “No regular human can possibly do all of this stuff.”

“No regular human can do this  _ alone _ ,” Elena corrects, narrowing her eyes. “You do know we are still here, yes?” Sometimes she thinks Mack forgets that being director doesn’t mean doing everything S.H.I.E.L.D. needs done. Delegation exists.

“You’re pretty hard to forget, Yo-Yo,” Mack replies, kissing her cheek softly. 

Elena’s eyes stray to the laptop her partner had been focusing on so intently. It looks like personnel files of some sort, and she can see at a glance why it was demanding of so much time. There aren’t nearly as many agents as there needs to be for everything they have going - rebuilding Chicago, relegitimizing S.H.I.E.L.D., trying to go to space…

Her eyes go wandering over the rest of the detritus on Mack’s desk, skimming over piles of files and other papers before landing on a photo that’s perched precariously close to the edge. She leans forward and grabs it, peering at the picture in the frame.

“That’s us,” Elena comments unnecessarily. She suddenly has to focus very hard on not snapping the frame in half with her robotic hands. She doesn’t recognize the photograph, and wonders where Mack got it.

“Who else would it be?” Mack asks, taking the picture from her and setting it back on the desk, further from falling than it had been before. 

“You see me every day,” Elena replies, amused. “You don’t need a picture of me on your desk.”

“I like to remember what I’m fighting for,” Mack says with a casual shrug of his shoulders. He pulls Elena closer to him, and she tucks her head under his chin. “How else could I hole myself up in here all day?”

“Superior force of will,” Elena replies teasingly.

Mack chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Nah.” He shrugs his shoulders. “You know I didn’t really want to be the director, Yo-Yo. I just took it because it’s what everyone seemed to want.” Elena nods. Mack and his sense of duty are a sharp contrast to her general inclination to rebel, but it’s one of the many ways they balance each other.

“What would you be doing if not being director?” Elena asks. Indulging themselves in what-ifs isn’t something that they do often; they both have made mistakes they regret, and thinking too much on what could have happened differently is just depressing.

“Don’t know,” Mack answers. “Something with you is really all I care about.”

Elena’s lips curve into a smile at that, warmth sinking into her despite the chill of the morning. “Technically, this is still something with me.”

Mack laughs again. “You know what I mean, Yo-Yo.”

She nods; she does know what he means. They’ve talked in vague terms about their future - about marriage, about children, about growing old together - but it seems like there’s always something waiting to push those plans back a little further. If Mack hadn’t been made director, they probably would have gotten out and started working towards their own happy ending, rather than trying to help make everyone else’s.

“We still have time,” Elena murmurs, even if she’s not sure if that’s true. They’ve come terrifyingly close to their time together running out too often. It’s an occupational hazard, but one that she does her best to ignore.

“Of course,” Mack agrees, assuaging her fears. He yawns. “We’ve got all the time in the world. We’re meant for each other.”

Her stomach flutters pleasantly at the thought; they’re going to get where they want to go. And not just because they’re meant for each other, but because they  _ work _ for each other, for their relationship, instead of letting fate drive them apart. It would have been too easy for them to give up on each other, but they never had.

“Come to bed, mi amor,” Elena murmurs. “If we have all the time in the world, this can wait until later.”

Mack looks ready to protest, but then he yawns again, and he can’t really claim that he’s not tired.

“Fine,” he finally relents.

They separate, exiting the office in favor of the bedroom. Elena draws the curtains shut, blocking out the early morning light, and slips into bed beside Mack.

She won’t sleep, but he will, and that’s all that she wants.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written something strictly Mackelena-centric, and I'm still trying to figure them out, so... yeah. Hit me up on [tumblr](https://huntxngbxrd.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
